Grave matters: dispossession and the desecration of ancestral graves by mining corporations in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Dispossession is characteristically associated with the period of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Consequently, not much consideration is given to how the previously marginalised continue to be dispossessed in their everyday lives by coal mining activities in the current political dispensation. This article reframes dispossession as a perpetual post-apartheid experience in African communities. In this paper, dispossession does not only encompass events of deprivation, and the loss of land and property, but also covers the loss of the incorporeal. The relocation of African ancestral graves in Tweefontein (Ogies) is discussed as an aspect of dispossession. The politics surrounding household relocations and grave exhumations illustrates how communities not only lose the material; land and tombs, but also lose their intangible possessions; ancestral connection, identity, heritage and belonging because of mining.

KEYWORDS:

• Dispossession
• grave relocations
• household relocations
• intangible loss
• material reductionism

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank all the families who let me into their lives; who shared their most intimate memories about their loved ones who have passed on, and who courageously recounted how their ancestral remains were dishonoured.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The paper draws from accounts of families who were affected by household and grave relocations, and in some cases, by one and not the other. The relocated graves were originally located on the Tweefontein farm. The graves mostly belong to former labour tenants and migrant labourers whose families now live in Witbank and around Ogies. Some of the families came to the now Mpumalanga Highveld in search of work in the coal mines and coal-fired power stations, whereas others were forced to work on white-agricultural farmland. Over 120 families who lived on farmland were moved to Phola ogies by Glencore in 2015, whereas, over 1000 graves were relocated for the Tweefontein Coal Optimisation project. Some of the graves covered in this article date back to the 1920s and 1960s. These are remains of women, men, and children who died from various causes including short- and long-term illnesses, as well as accidents. Many of them were buried on farmsteads where the land was subdivided by farm-owners to work and bury. The interviews suggest that the families were sharecroppers, and in an instance of absent landlords, they did not have to pay rent through labour. When faced with death many buried on informal cemeteries and on the farms which had become home.

2 Coal Resources Overview, http://www.energy.gov.za/files/coal_overview.html, accessed on 2 July 2019.

3 Coal Resources Overview, http://www.energy.gov.za/files/coal_overview.html, accessed on 23 July 2019.

4 https://www.polity.org.za/article/glencor-glencore-hands-over-r75-million-school-in-mpumalanga-2015-06-12.

5 John Mnguni, Interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola Park. 28 April 2016.

6 See, for instance, Pistorius (2006).

7 This means that both require different forms of mitigation measures according to the heritage law.

8 Ibid.

9 Families conversed about their legal rights and brainstormed about adequate compensation for the relocation of their graves.

10 What the participants refer to as “a divide and rule strategy.”

11 Peter Mokalapa, group interview by Dineo Skosana, Vorsman, Witbank, 28 April 2016.

12 Ibid.

13 Jimmy Mavimbela and Mrs Mtshweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Kwaguqa, Witbank, 20 May 2016.

14 Peter Mokalapa, group interview by Dineo Skosana, Vorsman, Witbank, 28 April 2016.

15 Henk Steyn, interview by Dineo Skosana, Waverley, Pretoria, 30 September 2014.

16 Abel Mtsweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola Park, Ogies, 11 June 2016.

17 Abel Mtsweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola, 11 June 2016.

18 Mathibela, op cit.

19 Jimmy Mavimbela and Mtshweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Kwaguqa, Witbank, 20 May 2016.

20 Abel Mtsweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola, 11 June 2016.

21 Maseko, interview by Dineo Skosana, Hlalanikahle, 20 May 2016.

22 Jimmy Mavimbela and Mtshweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Kwaguqa, Witbank, 20 May 2016.

23 Abel Mtsweni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola, 11 June 2016.

24 Motaung, interview by Dineo Skosana, Empumelelweni, Hlalanikahle, 20 August 2016.

25 Elizabeth Mnguni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola Park, Ogies, 11 June 2016.

26 John Mnguni, interview by Dineo Skosana, Phola Park, 28 April 2016.

27 Steyn (op cit.) (Emphasis added.)

28 The newly relocated graves are erected with tombstones which are engraved with the name of the funeral parlour for branding purposes. This is done irrespective of that some of the owners of the graves or the deceased could not be identified.

Additional information

Funding

With thanks to the support of the Ford Foundation for this research.

Notes on contributors

Dineo Skosana

Dineo Skosana is a researcher at Society, Work and Politics Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research focuses on coal-mining-affected communities in different parts of South Africa.